


Unquantifiable

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [33]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Grumpy John, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, Pet Names, Sweet Sherlock, Texting, The Princess Bride References, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, gratitude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 10:05:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3377468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John remains a terrible and foul-tempered patient, but he does try to make up for it with pet names and text message silliness. In the meantime, Sally Donovan visits Baker Street for a hint about the Milverton case, and has to deal with a Sherlock Holmes who can't find words big enough to thank her for saving John's life at the warehouse. For afters, there's a viewing of The Princess Bride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unquantifiable

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the absolutely glitter-brained fluffiness of most of this chapter offers succour after all the hideous trials of the preceding chapters.
> 
> The massage oil and foot rub (such as they are) are dedicated to Kizzia. The Princess Bride stuff is dedicated to everyone else who was amused by the passing reference to iocane powder and wanted the boys to watch the film.
> 
> While I think of it, would anyone be in the slightest bit interested in Redbubble t-shirts etc emblazoned with various pet names?   
> UPDATE: Okay, [I've given it a shot. ](http://www.redbubble.com/people/narrelleharris/collections/362000-unkissed)More to come. Suggestions welcome.

John continued to have bad dreams the next two nights in Canterbury, but nothing like as bad as the one after Milverton’s death, and there were no repeats of the panic attack. Each time he woke, gasping and shivering, Sherlock was there, gathering him up close, and each time, John pressed himself to Sherlock’s chest, to that safe harbour so unequivocally given to him, and sighed against Sherlock’s skin.

He could almost sense Sherlock wanting to ask questions and refraining from it. It was against Sherlock’s nature to refrain from asking, and both the effort and the success in it made John feel cherished. He would cuddle close to Sherlock, there in the dark, and feel safe and, despite his aching hands and unquiet memories, he would fall back to sleep and be undisturbed until morning.

After two slow, gentle days and three fractious nights, they returned to Baker Street on the Wednesday morning. John’s hands were slowly mending, but they ached a lot of the time. He frequently attempted to do more than he should and would hiss in pain when he bumped them. His temper continued to be easily stirred whenever he tried and failed in any of his usual tasks.

Sherlock, whose patience had been exemplary until this point, finally cracked when John, unable to answer text messages or even dial numbers for a call, began swearing viciously at his phone and, having dropped it, came within an ace of kicking it into the hall.

“For God’s sake,” snapped Sherlock, “Just use the voice activation function!”

John looked at him, halfway between fury and curiosity. “Voice activation function?”

Sherlock glared balefully back. “I know you are an intelligent man. I’ve seen evidence of it.”

“That is why they call me ‘Doctor’.” John was snappish.

“That’s not the evidence I mean.”

“Git.”

“Have you really not heard of the voice activation function?” At John’s continued blank look, Sherlock sighed and stalked over to where John was standing, the personification of belligerence, and picked the phone up from the floor. “Hold down this button and wait for the beep,” Sherlock explained. When the phone beeped accordingly, Sherlock said to the phone, “Call Sherlock.”

A female electronic voice said: “I’m sorry. I don’t have ‘Sherlock’ in my directory. Would you like me to Google that?”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow at John, then at John’s suddenly sheepish look, he grinned and held the button down again. When it beeped he said, “Call Honeybee.”

“Calling Honeybee,” said the computer voice.

At the kitchen table, Sherlock’s mobile rang. He strode over to the phone and hung up without taking the call. He walked back to John. “You can also send texts.”

He pressed the button again and said: “Send Honeybee a text message.”

“What message would you like to send?” asked the phone.

Sherlock held the phone up in front of John who said, “I love you, sweetpea. Leave your filthy tempered husband and run away with me.” Sherlock pressed the button again to end the session. John checked the message as written and then, in reply to the query "Shall I send your message?", told the phone to send it.

“Sending the message now.”

Sherlock’s phone pipped on the table.

“You can send voice messages too,” said Sherlock, "Just tell it you want to send a voice message rather than a text message."

“Right.”

“Keep your phone face-out in your pocket and don’t bother taking it out. Just press the button through the shirt. It will save your hands a lot of bother. If anyone calls, let it go to voicemail or let me answer it if you’re home. If you’re out and I need you, I’ll text. Don’t bother reading it, just come home, if you want to, or reply with a text.”

“Right.”

“All right then?”

“Yes,” agreed John, “It is. Thanks, sweetheart.”

“Good.” Sherlock bent to kiss John on the cheek, placed the phone in John’s pocket, and then returned to his work at the table.

“I’m going out for a little while,” said John, “I need to stretch a bit. Clear my head.”

“Hmm,” said Sherlock, already distracted by the notes he was making. Unseen, John only smiled, gingerly pulled on his coat and went out.

Ten minutes later, Sherlock’s phone pipped with an incoming message.

 _The offer stands leave that grumpy  
bastard and run away with me_.

Sherlock didn’t reply. It would only mean John having to take the phone from his pocket, after all.

A few minutes later, the phone pipped again.

 _Screw that your husband’s jealous_  
grumpy and jealous and  
he loves you.

Sherlock thought perhaps he should have taken a few moments to explain how to describe punctuation to the phone. Then his own phone pipped again.

_I bet you hate the lack of  
punctuation my sweet bunny._

Another pip. 

_You’re my sweetpea fluff  
bunny noodle doodle_.

Another.

_Noodle doodle snoodle doodle  
snoodle fluff this is fun._

Sherlock decided he might also have created a monster, but didn’t mind that much.

Then there was a knock at the door. Sherlock ignored it but the knock got louder, and the phone pipped again ( _little pixie honey bunny I love you_ ) and then Sally Donovan’s voice was loud and clear through the door: “I can hear you in there, Sherlock, you never leave without your phone!” and finally another pip ( _I’m getting weird looks from the kids in the park, love bug_ ).

He gave up working with a sigh and yelled out: “You can come in if you have a case, Sally.”

Sally came in.

“Greg not with you?”

“He’s at a crime scene. Nothing for you,” she added hastily, “But Greg asked me to ask you about the Milverton murder down in Folkestone.”

“Not your patch, surely,” said Sherlock.

His phone pipped. He glanced at it. ( _This squirrel looks like Anderson that squinty puzzled thing he does he sort of cute fuck I did not say that.)_

“No,” agreed Sally, “But Greg thought we’d ask anyway. The locals are stumped, and it's weird. Right up your alley.”

“Oh?”

“Mysterious visitor that seems to have come and gone via a secret tunnel, indications Milverton died of a stroke but no health signs pointing to that and the autopsy has hints of an unknown alkaloid. A landscape gardener apparently visited the property on the day of Milverton's death to get his phone, but we can’t find any trace of him, the cook he appeared to be sweet on or Milverton’s PA.”

“I knew Milverton by reputation. I’m not at all surprised half his employees took off the minute he was dead. I expect you’ll find a number of others have vanished too.”

“About half a dozen so far. A couple of high profile pollies and civil servants who were suspected of having links to him have also taken sudden, long holidays overseas.”

“Plenty of suspects then.”

“Motives too. Milverton was a creep.”

“Yes. Even if I wasn’t very busy, I’m not inclined to take it on. Besides, John is still recovering from the warehouse. I don’t suppose they’ve talked yet.”

The phone pipped. ( _I feel like Edward scissor hands want to be my winona._ )

“You suppose right. In fact, if you supposed that the men who’d been on bail have disappeared and that the one who was in custody was shanked two days ago in prison, you would also suppose right.”

Sherlock raised his chin to look at her. “You’ll find that John and I have been in Canterbury, while he recovered from the broken fingers and the burns they gave him.” He’d meant his voice to be ice, but it became ragged when he vocalised the injuries John had sustained.

Donovan’s expression softened. “Not accusing you of anything, Sherlock. We think the attack on John and Milverton’s murder are related, but only tangentially. Milverton had a lot of enemies.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and nodded. “We had been looking into him, it’s true. We hadn’t made any progress at all. Everyone was too afraid to talk to us. We think now that’s why John was taken - someone trying to find out how much we'd learned - but I was investigating an unrelated but confidential matter at the time.”

“Right.” Donovan didn’t appear convinced, but she also seemed resigned to the idea that she’d get nothing else from Sherlock on the issue. “How is he, by the way? Feeling better after your holiday?”

“Somewhat.”

Pip. ( _Beautiful boy my consulting snuggle bum I wonder if this thing knows how to spell bumble bear_ )

“How about you?” she asked, levelling an assessing gaze at him.

He didn’t know quite what to do with that look. Nobody but John really ever asked him if he was all right. And he’d been very focused on the plan these last weeks and days. He hadn’t had time to reflect much at all on what had happened at the warehouse. 

However, for the last few days, he, too, had been having bad dreams - of a bullet unstopped, passing through his own body, leaving it unharmed, and tearing John out of his arms, no matter that he was still strung up on that wall with his bleeding face and broken hands, and now a blackened hole in the middle of his forehead. It was a relief to wake up to find John breathing beside him, even if John was in the throes of his own nightmare.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she said after a hesitation, and then she added, “I’ve been having pretty crappy nightmares about falling out of that window after the little prick that burnt him, myself… but if you’re okay, that’s good.”

Sherlock swallowed. “Sally, I…”

“Yes?”

“I meant to… that is…” Sherlock stumbled around it, as he once did around John, as he still did around others. But he heard the pip, saw the text ( _You’re my sweet little buzz, honey fuzz_ ) and the horror of what had almost happened slapped the stammer right out of him. “Thank you for saving him.”

She blinked and then nodded. “You’re welcome.”

“I… I thought…” He pressed his lips together in consternation, made a little annoyed huff and tried again. “I tried to think of some other way to thank you, but there isn’t anything but ‘thank you’.”

“It’s all right.”

“Anything else puts a value on John’s life, and I… he…”

“Hey. It’s okay, Sherlock.”

“There should be more to say.”

But there wasn’t. How could anything quantify, in words or deeds or gifts or favours, what she had done for them? The universe was not large enough to contain his relief and gratitude or to express it.

Donovan swallowed uncomfortably at the intensity of his gaze, as though his gratitude could be made manifest somehow. She understood it, really she did. Since Saturday, she’d had a few moments like that herself. She would have fallen to her death if not for Greg Lestrade, and now here was Sherlock Holmes with his laser eyes trying to put Thank You into her skull like a tangible thing. How could she possibly thank Greg for saving her life? What words could say it? She couldn’t find them for Greg, beyond that bone deep ‘Thank you’. She hardly expected Sherlock to do any better, even if he was a genius. 

So she said to Sherlock what Greg had said to her, simple and unadorned.

“You’re welcome.”

He blinked. His phone pipped again. (Sally could see a series of messages coming in from John, and caught glimpses of words like 'sweetpea' and 'snuggle'. The latest one read ‘ _jelly bean lemon drop gummy bear sugar mouse_ ’)

“You both are,” she said suddenly, “Very welcome. Give him my best, will you, when he gets home?”

“Yes, of course. And… if… if there's anything I can ever do, Sally. Just… ask.”

Frankly, it was making her uncomfortable seeing him so uncomfortable and out of his depth. He was far from the heartless psychopath she’d once imagined him to be, but he still found this kind of thing difficult. At least with people other than John.

Well, who was she to judge? She wasn’t the most emotionally articulate of people herself.

“There’s no need, really. I’m glad we stopped him, that’s all.”

Pip. Sherlock’s phone announced suddenly: “You have a new voice message.”

“I’d best be off, then.”

Sherlock nodded absently, reaching for his phone and keying the voice message to play.

John’s voice spilled into the room. Singing.

“ _My boy lollipop! You make my heart go giddyup_!” Then a measure of mad boyish giggling, followed by, “As a reward for your patience, little lamb, I’ve found some massage oil. How would you like a foot rub while we watch _The Princess Bride_. It’ll explain that crack about the iocane powder...”

Sherlock, with a covert glance at Sally, jabbed the stop button. Then he frowned. “ _The Princess Bride_?” he wondered aloud.

Sally grinned at him. “Yeah. You know. ‘Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!’”

“What are you talking about?”

“Never mind. John’s obviously looking forward to showing you.”

“Obviously.” Looked pleased by the notion, Sherlock put his phone in his pocket just as it pipped again.

Sally Donovan, not bothering to hide her smile, nodded goodbye and left.

She paused on the street downstairs to make a phone call.

“Hey baby,” she said when her new boyfriend answered the call, “What do you say to a night in with massage oil and a movie? Princess Bride? See you then, Chris. Love you.”

She could hear the warmth in his voice as he said 'Love you too', and realised it was the first time she'd said it to him. She went back to work, hands in her pockets, humming.

*

John returned a short while later with a little bag containing lime and almond scented massage oil, a box of stupidly expensive macarons and in the sweetest temper. Sherlock didn’t let him apologise for his previous foul mood, and circumvented it by pulled John into a close embrace and kissing him breathless.

“I’m not running away from my jealous husband,” Sherlock said at last, between fevered little kisses scattered over John’s cheekbones and jaw, “I love him as he is. I will never leave him, and I will not stand for anyone trying to take him away.”

John bumped his face up into Sherlock’s throat, trying to soothe the sudden distressed tension in his honeybee. “Hey, sssh, it’s all right,” he murmured, “No one will. No one can. I’m here, buzz.”

Sherlock held him close and released a shuddering sigh before leaning away briefly. “Buzz?”

“Buzzy busy little bumblebee,” John said, laughing.

“You’re ridiculous,” said Sherlock fondly.

“I am,” John agreed, “And I love you.”

“Well, that’s all right then,” agreed Sherlock.

They sat down on the sofa, Sherlock’s feet in John’s lap, and John proceeded to give Sherlock a strange version of a lavish foot rub; or perhaps Sherlock was giving John a stomach rub. With his hands still mostly out of commission, John squirted oil on his bare belly and Sherlock pressed the soles of his bare feet against him there and flexed his feet like a happy cat, sometimes wriggling his toes.

John periodically giggled, then leaned over so Sherlock could hand-feed him a macaron, placing it between John’s teeth, before he leaned over too, biting the confection in half, kissing John’s mouth or nose, and sinking back to flex his feet and watch more of this ludicrous film.

Before the end of it, John was calling Sherlock The Dread Pirate Roberts and Sherlock was calling John Buttercup, which clearly delighted him no end.

When Wesley was revived from being Mostly Dead, Sherlock reached down to pat John’s ankles, which bracketed his hips. “I was 'only mostly dead' once,” he said.

“Did you come back to life for True Love?”

“Most assuredly,” said Sherlock, and John gave him a look so melting that he didn’t feel so terrible for all the sentimental mush and forgot to return to his constant critiquing of the film.

In bed later, John shifted about until he was once more little spoon, and he leaned his head back against Sherlock’s clavicle. “I’ll be okay, you know,” he said, “And so will you.”

“I’m fine, John.”

“You’re having bad dreams too,” he said, and Sherlock wondered how he knew, “But we’ll be okay. We’ve survived worse.”

“I know.” Sherlock burrowed his face against the back of John’s neck until John tipped his head forward to let Sherlock kiss his spine.

“Dread Pirate Precious,” John said, and giggled, “Go to sleep, now.”

“As you wish. Buttercup,” said Sherlock.

Wrapped up together, they slept, free of nightmares for tonight at least, their gratitude for their narrow escape, like their love, unquantifiable.


End file.
